Dwayne Jones was technically a part of the trade that sent Hedo Turkoglu to Phoenix and Leandro Barbosa to Toronto, though you probably wouldn’t know it. Jones’ career thus far has consisted of bench-riding and D-League excellence, and his inclusion in the Suns-Raps deal was merely a salary-matching formality. Toronto waived him soon after, and Jones’ basketball future has been up in the air since.

However, according to the Arizona Republic, the Suns have signed — or is it re-signed? — Jones for the ’10-’11 season. It’s fair to assume that Jones’ deal is likely for a salary close to the league minimum.

Phoenix originally signed Jones back in April, and although the Suns have undergone plenty of roster changes since that time (including waving buh-bye to Amar’e Stoudemire), Jones’ role should remain more or less the same: end-of-the-bench big, practice body, stop-gap rebounder. If Jones ends up playing significant minutes for Phoenix, something along the way went horribly wrong (somebody isn’t playing up to expectation, an injury bug has claimed multiple Phoenix bigs, etc.).

That isn’t to say that Jones isn’t useful. If given the opportunity, he’d likely do good work on the glass in the NBA, although the rest of his overall game still needs work. However, as I noted before, odds are that in the upcoming season, we won’t get to see how Jones stacks up against other NBA bigs. Definitely a bummer, but probably for the best, as Phoenix has a number of other candidates ready to fill in minutes at both the 4 and the 5.